2023-04-06
47 分钟Many companies say they want to create more opportunities for Black Americans. One company is doing something concrete about it. We visit the South Side of Chicago to see how it’s working out.
Today on the show, a rare story that you wouldn't think would be so rare.
We decided to take a contrarian view and bet that bringing jobs to an area that hadn't had opportunity would be a good business decision.
The experience of black people on the south side of the city is a unique experience.
Just about every big company says they want to create more opportunity for black Americans.
One company decided to do something very basic about it.
What do economists think of their idea?
You want the good news first?
We should applaud and even incentivize well intended and good behaving corporations or the bad news?
I'm quite skeptical on the ability of PR campaigns to shape corporate America into improving economic opportunity for all.
PR campaign, good behaving corporation, or something else entirely?
You will have to decide for yourself, starting right now.
This is Freakonomics radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything with your host, Stephen Dubner.
Most big companies these days, and small ones too, are leaning hard into DEI programs.
That stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.
There was a lot of talk of systemic bias and systemic racism, and I know those are sort of loaded terms, but for me it just meant that the racism and the bias of previous decades reinforced itself in a system that continues to this day unless we do something to break the cycle.
That's Roger Hochschild, and I'm the CEO and president of Discover Financial services.
Discover is best known for their credit card.
They also run a fairly large bank, but they don't have a network of brick and mortar branches.
Hochschild has been with the company since 1998, and he used to be the chief marketing officer.
This meant spending a lot of time shaping discovers public image.